Big data bounce – organisations are bringing their data back in-house

In what must be a surprise to telcos, data centre and managed services providers, organisations are changing tack and are bringing their data back in-house, according to new research from Oracle.

With the rise of cloud computing, the availability of broadband and mobile services, outsourcing of data management has been a definitive trend for the past five years.

However, according to the latest Next Generation Data Centre Index from Oracle, many organisations across Europe, the Middle East and Africa are bringing their data back in-house after a year that saw many turn to the short-term support of external, third-party providers.

The increased outsourcing of this function was caused by firms being taken by surprise by an apparent big data explosion.

But now firms are reversing this trend and bringing their data back into in-house data centres.

The research by Quocirca on behalf of Oracle says this big data bounce is not only testimony to the increased value of data and the greater focus of business upon it, but also highlights the importance of businesses being able to move data between public and private cloud as easily as possible.

It also reveals that sustainability still leads among the issues shaping data-centre strategies.

The proportion of respondents to the survey using in-house data facilities has risen from 45pc to 66pc in the past year.

The proportion using multiple in-house data centres has gone up from 19pc to 25pc.

Organisations with in-house plus external data-centre facilities has fallen from 30pc to 16pc.

Beyond the big data hype curve

According to Jon Paul, sales director at Oracle Ireland, there is a definitive move by the 50 Irish-based organisations in the global survey to consolidate their legacy IT real estate, typically moving from four physical data centres down to one.

“They are seizing on opportunities to improve the operational efficiency of their IT assets.”

Paul said other aspects, such as sustainability and the need to cut down on electricity prices, are encouraging the consolidation trend.

“When we talk to utility companies, Ireland is 23pc more expensive for electricity compared to the European average.”

However, for data centre operators, Ireland’s ambient temperatures and the local skillsets required to run sophisticated data centres eliminate the cost of electricity as a factor.

“One of our customers has just signed off on building a landmark green data centre. Ireland has a bulk of data centres here that can draw on experienced staff,” Paul said.

John Caulfield, solutions director at Oracle Ireland, explained that big data is only at a nascent stage in Ireland and the big data bounce experienced elsewhere is less of a factor at this stage.